Old English Sports eBook

When the Queen visited Kenilworth Castle, splendid
pageants were performed in her honour. As she
entered the castle the gigantic porter recited verses
to greet her Majesty, gods and goddesses offered gifts
and compliments on bended knee, and the Lady of the
Lake, surrounded by Tritons and Nereids, came on a
floating island to do homage to the peerless Elizabeth,
and to welcome her to all the sport the castle could
afford. For an account of the strange conduct
of Orion and his dolphin upon this occasion, we refer
our readers to Sir Walter Scott’s Kenilworth,
and the lover of pageants will find much to interest
him in Gascoigne’s Princely Progress.
In many of the chief towns of England the members of
the Guilds were obliged by their ordinances to have
a pageant once every year, which was of a religious
nature. The Guild of St. Mary at Beverley made
a yearly representation of the Presentation of Christ
in the Temple, one of their number being dressed as
a queen to represent the Virgin, “having what
may seem a son in her arms,” two others representing
Joseph and Simeon, and two others going as angels
carrying lights. The people of England seem always
to have had a great fondness for shows and pageants.

CHAPTER XI.

NOVEMBER.

“The ploughman, though he
labour hard,
Yet on the holiday
Heigh trolollie, lollie loe.
No emperor so merrily
Doth pass his time away;
Then care away,
And wend along with me.”—­Complete
Angler.

“The
curious preciseness,
And all pretended gravity
of those
That seek to banish hence
these harmless sports,
Have thrust away much ancient
honesty.”—­IRVING’S Sketch
Book.

The first of November is All Saints’ Day, and
the eve of that day, called All-hallow Even, was the
occasion of some very ancient and curious customs.
It seems to have been observed more by the descendants
of the Celts than by the Saxons; and Wales, Scotland,
and Ireland were the homes of many of the popular superstitions
connected with this festival. In Scotland the
bonfires were set up in every village, and each member
of a family would throw in a white stone marked with
his name; and if that stone could not be found next
morning, it was supposed that that person would die
before the following All Saints’ Day. This
foolish superstition may be classed with the other
well-known superstition with regard to the sitting
of thirteen people at one table, in which some are
still foolish enough to believe.

All-hallow Even was supposed to be a great night for
witches: possibly it was with the intention of
guarding against their spells that the farmers used
to carry blazing straw around their cornfields and
stacks. It was the custom for the farmer to regale
his men with seed cake on this night; and there were
cakes called “Soul Mass Cakes,” or “Soul
Cakes,” which were given to the poor. These
were of triangular shape, and poor people in Staffordshire
used to go a-souling, i.e. collecting
these soul cakes, or anything else they could get.